A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Note: this and the coming entries are the follow up of the entry just before this one: Outline of the Weird Month.  Which is not actually its title.  It’s the one just under this one, before it.  Or after it.  Whatever.  If you do not read the outline of the month, then I have lived and suffered in vain.  I want sympathy.  I want oooooos and ahhhhhhhs of amazement.  I want blinks of total shock.

 

Pictorial Installment One:

        I don’t know how old I was the first time we went to Disneyland.  But I am older than Disneyland, and that is a fact.  In what I think is my earliest memory of going to that place, my parents had each taken charge of a child – my dad was my official guardian, and Mom was supposed to keep track of my sister, who was then probably about two or three.  I remember this because we had a terrible moment of panic (not the first I remember having), when my dad suddenly looked around wildly and said sharply to my mother, “Where’s YOURS?”  It was like – blink-blink – before mom and I realized he had actually been holding my sister in his own arms the entire time. And then the relieved laughter.  I remember all of that like it had been a dream.

            You used to have to buy ticket books there – the cheapest kind were the “A” tickets which would get you into the really not exciting stuff.  And eventually, they went up to “E” which included Pirates.  Your entrance to the park depended on your cocktail of tickets – so many “A”s so many of each of the others.  Maybe, I don’t remember, you could just walk around the park for free without a ticket book if you didn’t want to ride; that would fit the vision Walt had had that lead to the building of the place.  I still have three “E” tickets, I think.  Or maybe they’re “C.”  Probably “C.”  I mean, who’s going to leave the park without riding all the good stuff first?

            I think it was my eighth birthday – but you know, that could just be my sense of romance – when  TWA sponsored the rocket ride.  There was this tall white rocket with the TWA red trim and when you got inside it, there were all these concentric circle benches, all focused on a “port” in the floor.  When the ride started, the rocket shook and there was a tremendous noise of engines, and when you looked down from your seat, you could see the earth dropping away through that port.  I don’t think I was terrifically impressed by this – enough to remember it, obviously.  And over the years, the rocket was pretty over-shadowed by all the cool new stuff (today, it’s been demoted, a roof ornament for the café in Tomorrowland).  But that day, the rocket was a treasure; because of it, TWA employees all got these magical red bracelets that let them ride anything they wanted, any time they wanted, as many times as they wanted.  It was the coolest thing ever.

            So long before the Disney Princesses became a cult thing, I was one – in a shiny red bracelet.

 

 

            What I remember mostly from those L.A. years and Disney are impressions, feelings.  I remember the sounds of the park at night, when all of the animals on the Jungle Cruise suddenly were so loud, you could hear them on Main Street.  Maybe they didn’t play music all over the park then the way they do now.  And I remember that I always got to sleep in the living room on the fold away couch the night after, since my sister and I had a tendency to throw up after all that excitement, and my parents had to keep an eye on us.

            The truth is, Walt Disney always seemed like a grandfather to me.  My own grandfathers had died before I was born.  So Walt was as real to me as all his stories were.  And I almost believe that, in those magical years of the late fifties and early sixties, if you’d looked on the bottom of just about any kid’s foot, you’d have seen a copyright mark with the name Disney attached.

            I guess, what I’m trying to say is, Disney was an intensely family, intensely essential experience for me, growing up.  Thus, when we had our own kids – and happened to be in the neighborhood (Guy’s parents lived in Northridge – not exactly the same neighborhood), it was a big deal to take the kids to the Happiest Place on Earth.

 

 

            For me and the kids, that place became a sort of Mecca.  And has remained so.  Funny how, in these last many years, first with Cam leaving, now with Murphy—going to the “Land” or the “World” has become almost a desperate thing.  An escape into a sort of suspended state where delight is the air you breathe, and you can be together in a way your own real world can’t allow.

            You know those commercials where the two little girls go laughing and dancing through Disneyland, and then they pass a window, and in the reflection, you find out that one of those little girls is actually the middle-aged mother?  That’s exactly how it is.  Exactly. 

A brief hint of eternity?  I hope so.  With all my heart.

When the family dwindled down to just the four of us, we went alone – and still found delight, and deepened friendships and felt melded in a very necessary way.

We had a great week this time, stayed in the Fairfield Main Gate, so we could walk back and forth to the park. Squeezed every drop we could out of our Park Hopper passes.  We rode Soarin’ Over California, watched Aladdin, ate too much ice cream.

 

 

Chaz with Mulan, who she’d really like to be.  Except Japanese instead of Chinese. 

We love to collect nice people at the Magic Kingdom.  Two years ago, it was the sweet Japanese lady with her baby (hair buzzed but for a heart shape left on the top of his head) chatting Chaz up in Japanese with such evident joy.  And Murphy, discoursing in Spanish with our once-South-American-civil-engineer, now L.A. shuttle driver.  And the impertinent French boys who kept staring at the Chaz in the line at Thunder Mountain. 

This year, is was a young man who was actually bossing Thunder Mountain.  Okay – this is kind of a long story.

 Our last night, nothing was open – the main park had been virtually shut down; we had the misfortune of being in the park the day one of the hugest Disney million dreams was being bestowed: a huge quinceanera that involved the Sleeping Beauty castle (choked with batteries of movie lights and drapes) and everything for about 500 feet around it, including all of Fantasy Land (because of the quinceanera fireworks). Though it was nice, we’d be able to see fireworks, even though we were off season, this drove the paying customers (us) to the outskirts, and every ride left open was already full till closing, not so great a finale to a great week.

We had planned to go on every one of our favorite rides one more time, but Space Mountain was broken, Buzz Lightyear was crammed, and when we finally fought our way over to Thunder Mountain, it was closed, too – which was pretty much the last straw for Chaz and I.  But here was this kid, standing at the entrance, giving clear and polite explanations of everything – of the quinceanera, of what was closed because of it and what was not.  We explained to him that this was our last shot of the whole trip, and he explained to us that his ride was down for technical reasons but that he was fairly confident it would come back up.  “Come back,” he said.  “We’ll take care of you.”

We messed around, got some dinner, came back, and they were just up and running.  There was a line, of course – but not too many people had yet ealized the ride was fixed.  We ended up in line behind the – forgive me, but I speak no lies – worst famly EVER: The father seemed nice enough, just quiet and normal looking, but the kids were pierced all over and way too big around and goth and very, very sullen and whiny and loud.  But it was the mother.  Oh. My. Gosh.  Loud didn’t begin to cover it.  She stood three feet away from us, using ugly language at the top of her lungs, cruelly abusing her husband to the night skies.  I kind of put my hands out, pressing back against my own flock, and tried to make some space between us and this mess.  I could not believe the way that woman was talking to her man.  And he just took it.

So Chaz and I started singing some of our family songs – just quietly, just trying to drown out the trash talk for ourselves.  We do some old Irish songs and some hymns and some English folksongs.  M joined in.  We were singing really, really quietly – tired, and disappointed but together.  And after a little while, the man started glancing at us.  Then he stepped closer to his wife (how did he dare?) and whispered to her, and she started darting these sidelong looks at us.  Then she poked the kids and they started staring at us.

And we were working really hard not to notice.

We finished up a nice, long ballad, and suddenly, the awful family broke out in applause.  You could have driven a truck into my mouth and still had room for a Prius.  “You guys are wonderful,” she said, and suddenly was like a different person altogether.  So we started “Amazing Grace” and she sang with us.  It totally freaked us out.  Then we ran out of material, and they lost interest and went back to the selves they’d been before.  What is it they say about the savage breast?  I have no conclusion for this part of the story – no philosophy to cover it – only to say that the world is a strange and complex place.

When we got up the stairs into the station, we asked please for the last car – and thus, got shunted to the side to wait for the next train.  Where we proceeded to dance.  They play old timey banjo and mandolin music on that ride, so we were hamming it up.  This was not as silly a thing as some we’d done: when we were on the Disneyland Express platform, Char and M were doing ballet bar exercises (like M knows how), and at the ice cream parlor where they had this absolutely fabulous ragtime piano player who was burnin’ up they keyboard, M and Chaz just had to do the two step, right in the doorway of the emporium (the piano player liked it).

 

 

When we went to Disney World with Gin and her then three year old son, he pointed at this sign on the People Mover and said, “No Dancing.” 

We told the girl who was directing the Thunder Mountain line how much we’d appreciated the kid at the gate – (Dustin?  Duncan?  I was going to remember his name and write to Disney, but in all that’s happened since, I’ve forgotten his name, but he worked the Indiana Jones ride too).  She said, “He’s up there at the head of the train, managing stuff,” so we snuck up the line and told him how much better he’d made our last night, and how much it had meant to us.  “Last ride – last night!” I told him, and he saluted me.

They got us on the train – last car, just the way, Chaz wanted it.  And we rode in the dark, hoping that the fireworks would start as the train hit the top turns.  And they did.  All three tiny sparks went right off.  And that was it.  The whole Fantasy Land closed for three tiny sparks.  But the ride was great anyway – we always wear ear plugs on these things, makes it twice as fun.  When we pulled back into the station, Kristin (I’m pretty sure that’s her name), the girl in charge of chasing people off the platform toward the exit, told us to stay put.  That Dustin or Duncan or whatever his blessed name was, was giving us a free ride.

And that’s exactly what he did.  All the way around again without a second in line.  It was great.  It was hospitality.  It was the kind of thing Disney does best.

 

 

So that was our trip.  We spent too much money on pins (which some of us love)

 

Chaz, pin trading.

and ate Philly Steaks at the ESPN place in Downtown Disney (loud, but great food), we traded pins and got fast passes and snuck into the lobby of the Great Californian (woo-hoo!  Not quite Yellowstone, but danged impressive), and stood for an hour, watching people get soaked in the Grizzly Rapids geysers.  We had bread pudding, and ate at the Zocalo, rode Buzz Lightyear three times in a row (I almost got good at it).  Screamed in all the right places on StarTours and Space Mountain.  Oh – and Murphy and I rode the Tower of Terror twice in a row, too.  And we stared and gawked at the marvelous detail and design all over that park – not an inch of it that isn’t interesting, beautiful, fascinating, real.  And clean.

But the great thing was being there.  Just the fam, being there.

 

Could M be too silly for Chaz?

 

M, finally collapsing in the tea cups.  We knew he would.  G and I didn’t even TRY to ride them.  Man, these things are beautiful – restored better than they were when I was little.

This is how G rides the carousels.  And the rockets, and dumbo and Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain.  But he loves talking to total strangers – so he’s never bored. 

Yes.  No.  At least he’s secure in himself.

We share a “ride” with G.  Watching the world go by from a porch on Main Street.

 

My favorite thing in Toon Town, these stupid fish.

Roof detail in Fantasyland

Some random child in California Adventure.  But I shot it because we all knew exactly how she felt.

 

End notes: 

Disneyland:  Fairfield.  The guy the last night who kept us from gnawing on scenery – what was his name?  Who gave us a free ride.  And now we can’t remember his name.  First day wonderful.  M and I rode Tower twice in a row.  Rode the pirate ship.  Not in a hurry.  Conversations with pirates (his son with the Tartuga sign on his back).  Getting the beads in New Orleans square (musicians love me).  We’re a good audience at cowboy show (I was the robbers’ mom).  Romanian girl who loved working disney  Dan at the pin store in Frontier land and the little girl at trading (Mom: did you see anything interesting?  4 year old trader shrugs: Nothing we needed).  Downtown Disney and the Great Californian..  Ticket booth lady.   Singing You’ve got friend in me.  The silhouette lady.  Screamer.  Bread pudding.  Pins.  Peter Pan.  The tiny boy whose father was dancing to the Disney music on main street – the tiny boy, fiercely focused, trying to duplicate every move his father made.  But he didn’t really get the rhythm till he took off on his own.  The father, just as focused on the son.  Buzz Lightyear (3 times in a row – I wanna beat Chaz)

 

Saga of the Weird Month to be continued . . .